The new-era Dallas Cowboys won a playoff game. It wasn’t always pretty and naturally, it was filled with down-to-the-wire drama, but they pulled it out. Along the way, the offensive play-calling and a few of the play designs were questionable, at best, but Dallas overcame odds they occasionally stacked against themselves in those situations more often than not in a big 24-22 win over the Seattle Seahawks.

Specifically, Dallas continued to utilize different variations of jumbo packages that have been the self-inflicted Achilles heel for the offense throughout the 2018 season.

In this contest, the Cowboys employed the following personnel groups 14 times for 32 total yards:

13 personnel

21 personnel

22 personnel

22 personnel, with Cameron Fleming in as an extra tight end

23 personnel

12 personnel, with Tavon Austin blocking from a wing position

12 personnel, with Noah Brown blocking from a wing position

12 personnel, with Amari Cooper blocking from a wing position

Five of these 14 plays were passes, including two completions for 19 and six yards, two incompletions and an interception in the red zone. The other nine plays were all runs for seven total yards, including two one-yard touchdown plunges.

After looking at the numbers as a whole, it’s hard to decide whether or not this was successful. Good luck coming up with a hard answer after watching the tape.

Play 1

On the Cowboys’ first drive of the game, Jason Garrett trotted out the 13 personnel group for a second-and-2 situation with lots of eye rolling at TVs across the country:

To our surprise, the Cowboys ran play-action out of this formation and got Cooper wide open on a comeback route against man-to-man coverage on the weak side of the formation.

Seattle employed an old school 46 “bear” defense anticipating the run to Ezekiel Elliott and everybody crashed hard on the fake, although all three tight ends were well covered on their passing routes. Cooper simply beats Shaquill Griffin on his route, giving Dak Prescott a relatively easy throw, although he had pressure in his face on the bootleg.

Moral of the story: Dallas didn’t run Elliott into a brick wall and waste this play. Good call.

Continue for several more examples with varying success…

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